Free
by Team Damon
Summary: As long as he kept coming around, as long as his silver eyes haunted her dreams, and as long as she kept giving into her forbidden, consuming desires for his touch, she would never be free. Oneshot


**A/N: this is what happens when a song inspires me and I can't get the idea out of my head til I write it. I consider this to be highly OOC, and not my best, but like I said, I had no choice because the plot bunny wouldn't go away. Song is "Free" by Haley Reinhart (couldn't stand her on AI but dang I love her song lol). Not really any lemons... I don't write those... more like water with a slice of lemon. lol, hope some of you like it! :)**

_We don't let go, we can't get close_

_I still need you, and you still need me_

_This tug of war can't go on anymore_

_Nobody wins from this misery, free_

_Why can't you see _

_I wanna be_

_I want you to be_

_free_

Each time, she swore it would be the last time. Each time, the shame and the guilt intensified, and yet so did the passion that kept her coming back.

She no longer recognized herself when she looked in the mirror, and the secrecy of it all was slowly eating away at her. On the outside she was still the same woman, still loyal and noble, but those qualities were steadily declining in the shadows of her betrayal. She clutched her mug of cooling tea as she sat alone at her kitchen table, and reminisced on her fall from grace.

It started at a pub, the night before her wedding at her hen party. She was giggling and drinking with her best girlfriends, utterly oblivious until she was already drunk that a stag party was happening just a few tables over. She recognized the platinum blonde head of her former rival amidst his mates, and she vaguely recalled reading in the _Daily Prophet_ of his impending marriage to some gorgeous pureblooded brunette. The news hadn't meant much to her, as she was busy trying to keep her own engagement from falling apart.

It wasn't that she didn't love her fiancé. Far from it, he was her best friend, and she loved him dearly - but the spark they had shared in the chaos of the Battle of Hogwarts did not survive the war. What seemed so perfect on parchment was very flawed in execution, and she found herself going through the motions very early in the relationship, but thankfully, he seemed oblivious.

But what else was she supposed to do? They were always going to end up together, and they would have a good life. She convinced herself that she was being stupid, and that everything would fall into place in due time. Until then, she would fake it, and she faked it well.

These thoughts were tucked away safely in the back of her mind during that night at the pub, and when she got up to dance with her friends, she felt the distinct sensation that she was being watched. She glanced around and found a pair of silver eyes fixed upon her, and felt a shiver ripple through her at the realization of who was undressing her with his eyes as he sipped from a bottle of something.

She tried to shake it off but it was nearly impossible, and he would not take his gaze away from her. Eventually she began to feel overheated and retreated to the ladies' room to splash some cold water on her face, but when she looked up from the sink she jumped at the sight of the blonde man standing behind her, staring intently.

She wheeled around to yell at him for being in the ladies' room and demand to know why he had been watching her like some kind of creeper all night, but she never got a chance to say a word. His lips crashed on to hers and she lost her breath at the contact, feeling a wave of electricity strike her from the inside out, and she swayed on her unsteady feet, but his strong arms held her upright. He tasted of rum and smoke and felt like fire where he touched her, and she didn't dare protest when he picked her up and shoved them into a stall, kicking the door closed behind him.

What then happened shocked her to her core and seemed more like a dream than reality, but she enjoyed it more than she ever thought she could enjoy intimacy (if a rendezvous inside of a pub's bathroom stall could even be called such a thing). He was everything her fiancé wasn't, fiery and smooth, intoxicating and a little bit rough, and he had taken her the way she had only ever fantasized about being taken.

When it was over he set her down and gave her that burning look once more, and her words became stuck in her throat. He kissed her once more before vanishing before her eyes, leaving her to catch her ragged breath and struggle back into her clothes as her mind sobered quickly in the wake of what she had just done. Did she really just get shagged senseless in a public loo by a man that she'd spent her life hating as strongly as he hated her? Since when did he look at her that way? Since when did she look at _him_ that way?

It was easy to dismiss what had happened as a drunken mistake, and a bloody weird one at that, but it wasn't easy to look at herself in the mirror the next day as she stepped into her wedding dress. The guilt was horrible, and she couldn't believe that she was capable of such a thing, even in her drunken haze, and especially with _him_. What was _wrong_ with her?

She had done her best to hide her shame and said "I do" to her best friend that day, and resolved to never, ever, tell another living soul of her monumental screw-up, and to hex that blonde wanker into next Sunday if he ever came near her again.

His wedding had taken place the same day as hers, and their wedding photos had shared the front page of the _Prophet_. It made her hate him even more.

Their story should have ended there, and she should have honored her promise to herself to never stray again, but it didn't, and she didn't. A mere month later, she had accompanied her husband to a do at the Ministry, where he worked as an Auror, and there she came face to face with her worst mistake, and his new wife.

His wife was a beautiful and glamorous woman, tall and exquisite, and she had to wonder why on earth he would ever even consider cheating on her - what in the world did that woman not have? How could a creature such as her not satisfy him?

Her husband had left to go speak to the Minister about something, and she went to the loo to check her makeup. Once again, when she raised her eyes to the mirror above the sink, there he was, with the same intense stare as before.

"You," she'd seethed. "You stay away from me! How dare you -"

He silenced her with his lips, and swept her up as he'd done before, though this time the stall he carried her into was much cleaner than the one at the pub. She fought her own eager and quickly responding body and tried to push him away.

"Don't fight me," he'd said into her ear with his silky voice as he pushed her dress up her legs with his hands. "I know you want me again."

"No, I don't," she gasped as he assaulted her neck with perfect kisses.

"Then tell me to stop, and I will," he said as his hand found her most intimate place.

She felt as if she had burst into flames, and when she cried out his free hand quickly covered her mouth to stifle the sound. When she gained control of her voice he removed his hand, and his eyes bored into hers. "Tell me to stop."

She wanted to stop him, desperately so, but his fingers were doing things to her that left her utterly helpless, and she merely whimpered in defeat. Every last nerve in her body was alight and alive, and she felt so different, so good, that she could almost block out the self-loathing that was just under the surface of the maddening pleasure.

He kissed her as he continued to drive her crazy with his hand, and she kissed him back, gripping his soft blonde locks in her shaking hands, and when he brought her to edge, his hand covered her mouth once more as she moaned into it.

Then he'd let the skirt of her dress fall back down to her feet, and placed a tender kiss to her lips before Apparating away. She stood there in the stall, bewildered, wondering why in the world he had just done that to her without apparently expecting anything in return.

She rejoined the party after pulling herself together as best as she could, and took her place at her husband's side once more. Oblivious as ever, he gave her a kiss on her cheek and she looked across the room and locked eyes with the blonde man who had just made a cheater out of her for the second time, and she watched as he pressed a kiss to his glamorous wife's lips, never taking his eyes off of her. She gulped and followed her husband away from the party, using all of her self control to try to hold herself together and not burst into tears as they left.

She couldn't believe she had messed up again, and the next time she was alone, she cried to the point of hysteria. That blonde man had hated her all of her life, he must be doing this just to screw with her life - what other explanation was there? And she was horrible for allowing him to do it, no matter how strangely amazing it felt to be touched by him.

The first time she could blame easily on alcohol, but this time she had been fully in control of her mind and not impaired one bit. She couldn't explain this one away. The jerk had even given her the option several times to say no, and she had let him keep going. This had been her fault. It had been her choice.

She busied herself with work to keep her mind from slowly destroying itself in fits of overwhelming guilt and self-hatred. She was in the process of opening a bookstore in London, and as the weeks passed she slowly became able to delude herself into pretending nothing had ever happened between her and the blonde.

But then, about a month before opening, she walked into her store and found a letter waiting at her desk in the back room, a handwritten _D_ on the back on the envelope being the only indication of who it was from. She opened it and pulled out a check, and her eyes widened as she saw the amount being donated to her little store.

In truth, the donation would help her store greatly, but she knew who it was from, and she had no desire to take his Galleons. She tore up the check and disposed of the pieces.

But the checks kept coming and coming, and finally, she snapped and sent their sender an angry letter, telling him she didn't want his money, nor did she want anything to do with him. His owl had responded the same day, asking her to discuss it with him over a drink tomorrow night.

She had been outraged at the very suggestion of meeting him anywhere, but after stewing over it for awhile, she decided to go and take the opportunity to make sure he never came near her again.

They met at a small Muggle pub, to ensure that they wouldn't be seen, and he was waiting at the bar when she arrived. She tried to put her foot down and tell him in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see him again, she didn't want his donations for her store, and that their two trysts had been the worst mistakes of her life.

They ended up in a motel room an hour later.

By now, she was used to the horrible emotional aftermath of cheating, but it was even worse this time. She Apparated home in tears, thankful that her husband was working late at the Ministry that night, and spent the rest of the night curled up in bed mentally punishing herself.

Despite the consequences of her actions, she found that she couldn't stay away from her lover. They always managed to find one another at their weakest moments, and it became a vicious cycle of anxiety, pleasure, and crushing shame - for her, anyway. He seemed to lack any remorse for betraying his wife, and this bothered her greatly.

But as cold as he was, he was quite the opposite to her. He was gentle and giving, and he told her how beautiful she was to him every time they met. She would still find herself in shock at the way he treated her, after having been bullied cruelly by him most of her life. She couldn't believe there was such a sweet, tender, and passionate side to him underneath his outward sneer, and the longer they went on, the more she feared she was developing real feelings for him. But no matter how close they became physically, or how well they grew to know the other, she knew they could never be anything more to each other than cheaters, liars, and one another's adulterer. Yet he was quickly becoming everything to her, despite how much she wanted him to be nothing.

He was inescapable, unforgettable, and she was quite close to falling apart.

She wanted to forget these memories, and tried to often, but when she was alone, like she was tonight, it was all she could think of. Her husband was spending another night hard at work when a knock on her door roused her from her gloomy recollections. She left her mug of tea sitting on the table as she got up and went to the door.

She opened her door to a cloaked figure, dripping from the rainstorm currently sweeping overhead, but a flash of silver eyes was all she needed to identify the figure.

"What are you doing here? You agreed to never come here," Hermione whispered as he let himself inside and took off his soaked cloak.

"I happen to know your husband won't be home until early morning," he grinned, taking her in his arms.

"But still," she shook her head, "it's not right..."

"Is it right anywhere else?"

She pursed her lips. Of course it was just as wrong anywhere else, but this was her home that she shared with her husband, the home she planned to raise children in, and it just seemed especially offensive to have her lover here.

But then he was kissing her, and she felt the familiar fire enter her veins. Before she knew it, she was in the bed she shared with her husband, making love to the blonde Slytherin who she couldn't stay away from, sweating and panting her pain away.

It was over too fast, and she sighed into his chest as he held her under the sheets. She didn't know that he never did this with his wife, and even he didn't know why that was. He didn't understand much about himself these days.

Silence hung over the thick air for a moment before her lover spoke. "Astoria's pregnant."

She really shouldn't be surprised. If anything, she should be surprised that it had taken him this long to knock her up, but she still felt her heart sink into her gut. "This has to stop."

"You say that every time."

She untangled herself from him and covered herself with her sheets. "I don't care. I can't go on like this, especially not with a child involved."

He sat up and tried to tug her back down to him. "We both know you'll change your mind again."

Repressed emotions floated to the forefront of her mind and she felt tears stinging her eyes as she pulled herself away from him, rising from the bed and walking to her dresser, holding her face in her hands. "I can't do this anymore. I can't," she wailed. "I want to be free. I want this to have never happened."

Then there were hands on her waist, and he was pulling her against his still -disrobed form. "I feel free when I'm with you."

She turned around and looked up at him through her teary eyes. "But why? What do I have that she possibly doesn't have? Why don't you still hate me?"

He wiped a tear from her eye and said, "You're everything I wish she was."

She let out a deep breath and clutched the sheet around her tighter. He was everything she wished her husband was, as well. "This is miserable. I can't keep putting myself through this."

He held her close and stroked her long, wild hair. "I'd rather be miserable than feel nothing."

And here lied her truth as well. She only felt when she was in his arms, and she wasn't willing to give it up, even if the feeling was an exquisite misery. She was numb without him, a shell of herself without him, and she cursed the day she had caught his eye across that blasted pub. If only she never knew how his touch would make her feel, if only she had never felt his kiss, or heard the way he would groan when they were tangled together, maybe she could have lived a halfway normal life with Ron, and maybe she would be happy today. Maybe she wouldn't be a cheater, a shadow of her former self.

But she _did_ catch his eye in that pub, they _had_ become lovers, and she _was_ a cheater. She couldn't turn back time, and she had to deal with what she'd done, no matter how much she loathed herself for it.

She sighed shakily and laid her head upon Draco's shoulder. As long as he kept coming around, as long as his silver eyes haunted her dreams, and as long as she kept giving into her forbidden, consuming desires for his touch, she would never be free.


End file.
